tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859940184293909528.post1857030203641159707..comments2023-04-28T04:20:05.766-07:00Comments on WRITER on WRITING: What's My Motivation?Virtual Strangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01040333093180694172noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859940184293909528.post-10225709670064669892009-11-08T16:27:34.984-08:002009-11-08T16:27:34.984-08:00Another important thing to add to the misguided op...Another important thing to add to the misguided opinion that making things happen randomly without reason makes better stories because it is closer to reality, doing so amounts to willfully and blatantly ignoring the reasons why stories exist in the first place. -The reason why stories have existed in every culture since the beginning of time no matter how primitive. A story's #1 social function is to give the ILLUSION of order and meaning to the world we live in.<br />Yes, the universe is chaotic. Yes things can seem to happen randomly without reason or meaning. This is reality. But deep inside every human heart is the desperate cloying need for the illusion that the universe does have order and meaning. This is why every culture in history has invention religion. This why educated minds feel the need to pursue science. They have the desperate need to feel that there is some sort of order in the universe. There are rules and everything happens for a reason. If we were confronted with the empty meaningless of life on a daily basis we would either end up killing ourselves or all go stark raving mad.<br /><br />Stories exist because they fill this void and give the illusion of an ordered universe. We love stories on such a deep down subconscious level because they fulfill a psychological need. They give you a world where everything is connected, things happen for good reasons, problems are overcome, and things are resolved in the end. <br /><br />Any of those "art films" -I'm especially referencing anything late Godard, just always leave a person feeling cold and pissed off. Meanwhile Little Red Riding Hood makes you feel good every time.<br /><br />Read your Camus.SCRIPTMONK!!!https://www.blogger.com/profile/13911675482380489540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859940184293909528.post-27014393159946591122009-11-07T23:43:41.435-08:002009-11-07T23:43:41.435-08:00Precisely, Frank! I'm all for random headache...Precisely, Frank! I'm all for random headaches, news about second cousins, and the like. That is the oddness that helps establish a writer's particular world. But to just interrupt your story for no reason and claim it's "artistically valid"... that's just not cricket.<br /><br />I critiqued a book for a friend a while back, and it had a similar out-of-nowhere conclusion. I told him it was a bit like having Doctor Who show up in the last twenty pages of <i>To Kill A Mockingbird</i> to fight the alien android who’s replaced Boo Radley...<br /><br />;)Virtual Strangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01040333093180694172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859940184293909528.post-26848906087692278082009-11-06T05:44:30.262-08:002009-11-06T05:44:30.262-08:00Amen, brother.
I want to add another angle to the...Amen, brother.<br /><br />I want to add another angle to the question of random events in stories. At some minor level it may be Okay. Sort of like having your characters deal with the weather, but if you build something only to break it in a way that doesn't advance the story, it's just another tangent.<br /><br />Sure, the random death of the hero's buddy might be a terrible blow, but if the bad guy wasn't responsible it doesn't figure in the ultimate outcome of the story to, as you suggest, a degree commensurate with the previous investment in that character.<br /><br />So the hero wakes up with a headache. Or he learns that his cousin died in an auto accident. He more or less copes. That's all the useful realism to be had from random events in a story. We don't need to know about the cousin. All we want to see is the hero's response. (And he better get over it fast enough to survive, or we don't have a story).frank farrarnoreply@blogger.com